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Human Powered Vehicle Association President's Page
(from HPV News, May 1999) |
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Human Powered Vehicle Association President's Page
(from HPV News, May 1999) |
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The bicycling trade press reports that demand and sales of recumbent
bicycles and tricycles are skyrocketing, and manufacturers are often facing
long delivery backlogs. The HPVA is making many changes to meet this challenge
of greater public interest in human powered transportation alternatives, and
to better serve the interests of our members.
You will notice that the masthead of HPV News shows three new vice-presidents: Carole Leone, Past President of the HPVA is the VP of Land. Carole takes over the reins from Andrew Letton who continues his role as a Director of the HPVA. Andrew has served the HPVA in technical and organizational roles in recent events and championships, and is a very fast BikeE racing competitor. Al Krause is the new VP of All Terrain, taking over from Matteo Martignoni. Al is very experienced as a competitor and organizer in all-terrain, being a driving force behind the Kinetic Sculpture series of events. Matteo is a Vice President of the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy and is the director of ITDP's Cycle Rickshaw Improvement Project in India. We suggest visiting their website at http://www.itdp.org to learn more about the major improvements Matteo is making in this widespread use of human power. Bruce DeBell joins us as VP of Communications, a new role. Bruce will be handling publicity and communications for the HPVA, helping us increase awareness of human power and in publicizing our purpose, our programs and events. I would like to welcome the new VPs and thank them for volunteering. Thank you also to the former VP's who have helped us move the organization forward and have championed their specific areas of human power. The HPVA has made a lot of Bylaw changes, which were approved at a membership meeting in January 1999. The changes were required to change our name from the "International Human Powered Vehicle Association" to the "Human Powered Vehicle Association". They also involve a lot of detail and improvements about the way we operate the coporation. Our officers and directors are widely dispersed and we communicate almost exclusively by e-mail and telephone. We have very few face-to-face meetings, and the bylaws needed updating to provide for electronic communications. Bylaw revisions were required to remain consistent and current with the California State requirements for non-profit corporations, an important legal necessity. However, one critical part of the bylaws did not change. The goals and purposes of the HPVA are unchanged and continue to be: organizing and promoting periodic competitions on land, water and in the air; serving as a source of information for all human powered land, water and air records and all other records pertinent to the pursuit of human power; stimulating competition and creativity in the use of human power. The HPVA membership has a guiding role in these transitions and changes. Later, you will find a brief set of questions asking for your guidance and opinions about the HPVA. Please take a few minutes to respond. We welcome all your suggestions and need them to continue moving the HPVA forward and to meet your expectations of the association. Internet users within the HPVA membership have probably noticed that the HPVA and IHPVA websites and pages are undergoing a lot of upgrades and revisions. Mark Newell and Alan Thwaits are now helping Brian Wilson, the Web manger, in site administration, organization and operation. We are separating the International aspects of the IHPVA from webpages of the member associations, including the HPVA. There will be some rough edges as the changes are made, so we ask for your patience. We are trying to make all the HPVA standard and organizational documents available on the webpages, including the bylaws, competition rules, contact information and current announcements. For web-enabled members, we plan to publish information more quickly than we can with paper-based media, such as HPV News. Please visit the sites and give us your feedback. But members without Web access should not be concerned, as we will continue to publish paper copies of HPV News and Human Power. Chet Kyle has announced the Dempsey-MacCready One Hour Prize. We will undoubtedly see significant advances in human powered technology and personal performance as competitors strive to meet the 90 kph goal of the prize. Thank you Chet and Paul MacCready for initiating this project and thank you Ed Dempsey for your funding and support. We will follow the competition with great interest. In summary, it is a time of change for the HPVA. Most of the individual changes will be relatively small and incremental. But, together they will strengthen the association and help us continue our goals of furthering the cause of human power. 1999 will be a very interesting year for everyone in the HPVA. -- Chris Broome, May 1999 |
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